Making Home is a story and a testimony of the common human experience of migration, return and integration. As part of the research project, artist Eva Hållsten was commissioned to lead four workshops in May and June 2022 in her home - a large old farmhouse with a lush garden in Stockvike Öja on southern Gotland. She invited about 15 people who had migrated to Sweden from Afghanistan and Syria in 2015-16. She was inspired by the fact that many of them wanted to preserve the flavours of their home country's cuisine for cooking in their new country. Using their mobile phones, the group gathered inspiration and information from relatives and friends to build a wood-fired oven to bake traditional bread, cook and eat together. All the workshops were filmed by cinematographer Stefan Kullänger, who captured memories and discussions about the tastes and smells of home.

Azadeh Fatehrad: - The series of aesthetic workshops on Gotland provided a unique platform for sharing stories and experiences and enabled a rich exchange of perspectives on the theme of migration and belonging. Up close, I was able to witness how mobile technology is woven into the lives of migrants and serves as both a symbolic and practical tool to maintain contact with distant homelands. The insights from these discussions were invaluable and directly influenced the development of the documentary film and other parts of the exhibition.

The research project, Making it Home: An Aesthetic Methodological Contribution to the Study of Migrant Home-Making and Politics of Integration, takes an innovative approach to the challenges of migration and integration by exploring the ways in which migrants make and create homes within the complex and diverse integration policies of three host communities: the UK, Denmark and Sweden.